The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) administration has vowed to revoke all areas designed for sports centres now turned into parks and recreation centres. It said the move was to accelerate sports facilities for sports development. The Honourable Minister of State, FCT, Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide stated this after an inspection tour of sports facilities at the Area 10 Old Parade Ground sports complex and the Area 3 mini-stadium weekend.
Expressing dissatisfaction with the poor state of facilities at the Area 10 sports complex, she pledged to resuscitate the facilities for an effective use of the area. She said the decision by the previous administration to privatise the complex and turn it into a hotel and leisure centre is responsible for the poor handling of the area. “Obviously I cannot be satisfied with what I am seeing here, but the reason is simple. The administration had made a decision previously which I was aware of because I was a director on the board of AIG then, to privatise this facility and redevelop into hotel and leisure center. For some reason that did go ahead and that was why money has not been budgeted and sent for the maintenance of this facility since then.
But for now, having clearly taken a look at the state of Nigeria sports and the role FCT needs to play as a territory in sports, we need these facilities to remain for the territory, ordinary people and to develop our sports. We have reversed that policy and we will keep it as FCT sports facilities for people to use. We want to develop sports because one of the basic responsibilities of government is make sports facilities available for the people to use. You can see that this place is an excellent place for sports because it has everything. Talk of football pitch, track, table tennis, tennis, boxing, basketball, fives, gymnastic, wrestling, shooting range, you name them, everything is here,” she said.